Archives for December 2006

1. When you’re organising to send your international christmas cards and you’ve stuck the airmail sticker on, you also need to remember to stick the postage stamp on. Finding the stamps a week later in your purse makes you realise that you sent the cards off without stamps, but luckily you find out the recipients got them anyway.
2. When you’re merrily cutting your son’s hair, make sure you cut his hair and not a piece of skin off the tip of your finger. Doing this causes a lot of blood, and it bloody hurts to type.
3. When you’re running along the street to try and get the lights to cross the road because you’ve left leaving home a bit late, make sure you have shut your bag. If you don’t shut your bag your mobile phone and your house/car keys will bounce out. Luckily you hear the keys fall and luckily an honest school kid sees you lose the phone and hands it back.

This is my photo for the latest Photo Friday challenge (click on the photo to see larger image). The theme this week is Fresh.

This tomato plant self-seeded from last year and we’ve enjoyed a batch from it already and this is the next lot just about ready.

Last Friday I had a full body massage. This is a quarterly event for me and has been for about two years now. I had my first full body massage (apart from a few Shiatsu’s) four years or so ago when I was given it as a present for my son’s first birthday. A couple of good friends decided that I needed something like this more than he needed another toy.

After that I went there very rarely until I started having some major neck and shoulder trouble. The first time I only just moved slightly on the couch when I was watching early morning television and I pulled something and couldn’t move the top half of myself without being in agony. I rang my ex-boyfriend who does acupuncture and asked if he could come round and help me out. He told me to go and lie down. I just laughed and said that would be great if I didn’t have a 2 year old to look after.

I managed as best I could, which is what we parents do in any circumstance, until he came round and alleviated the pain a little bit. After a few days I felt almost back to normal. A couple of weeks later I lifted my arms up in the shower to wash my hair and felt another muscle go twang in my upper back. I’d done it again only not so severely this time.

After this I decided that I needed to get more regular body massages so I made a pact with myself to go every 3 months which I’ve been doing ever since. I see the same woman who first massaged me as that birthday present. Not only is she really good at doing it, but makes me feel really good about being a parent also. She tells me what a great job I’m doing and really bolsters me physically and emotionally.

So last Friday I dropped JJ off at school, rushed off to do some grocery shopping so I could do it child free. I then had to go to work to make up some time for leaving work early the previous day to pick JJ up from school and then it was my massage time.

While being massaged I have to relax. I have to lie on the table and nearly fall asleep while having my sore points rubbed and strangely enough even though it can be sore, it is very relaxing.

After we visited that man in the red suit the other day we went to the museum as well so JJ could see some dinosaur skeletons. It’s been a long time since I went to the museum – over 20 years I think – apart from exhibition openings in the foyer so I was interested to see what it was like as well.

I love how JJ gets caught up in looking at stuff and dragging me around at a whirlwind pace to see the next thing and asking lots of questions about things I have no idea about at all. Lucky I can read and just recite what the museum has provided in the way of information for its exhibition pieces.

With our museum visit over we walked along North Terrace which has been done up fairly recently to include some garden and water features. I thought I’d try out my camera on the sport setting. I can do things more manually with shutter speed and aperture but haven’t figured it out enough to do without the instructions on hand so the sport setting had to suffice.

I got some good shots of the fountain outside the art gallery. Here they be. And as we head into a hot day of 38 degrees celsius tomorrow and cannot put on a sprinkler most of the time due to water restrictions, looking at cascading water like this would have to do if we weren’t going to the beach.

I think this says it all really.

Yes it was an accomplishment. Yes I would have liked to win a prize. Will I do it next year? Don’t know.

It’s probably like childbirth – you forget what the actual pain of it was like – and the same will apply to NaBloPoMo. By the time late October rocks up next year I’ll have forgotten what it was like to feel committed to posting once a day for 30 consecutive days. I’ll get caught up in the hype and the new list of prizes.

But in the meantime I’ve got a lousy sense of accomplishment to keep me going.